Chief calls on Calif. cops to find son's stolen iPhone

Three detectives and a sergeant each logged two hours of overtime

By Kristin J. Bender
Contra Costa Times

BERKELEY, Calif. — When Berkeley police Chief Michael Meehan's son's cell phone was stolen in January, 10 police officers were sent to track it down, with some working overtime at taxpayer expense, police said Monday.

A police report about the theft of the teen's iPhone from a school locker was never written and the Oakland Police Department was never notified that officers on the department's drug task force were in North Oakland knocking on doors looking for the phone. Three detectives and a sergeant each logged two hours of overtime.

"If your cell phone was stolen or my cell phone was stolen, I don't think any officer would be investigating it," said Michael Sherman, vice chairman of the Berkeley Police Review Commission, a city watchdog group. "They have more important things to do. We have crime in the streets."